


younger and more beautiful

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Jon Snow is King in the North, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Prophecy, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, cersei fans abstain, this is honestly ridiculous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 21:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16920924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: No. Just no, Cersei thinks. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. The prophecy said - a younger and more beautiful queen. That was Margaery. That had to be Margaery. Snow isn’t even married. Margaery is dead. There is no way -There is just no way -No, Cersei thinks. Certainly something has gone awry. Certainly something will happen that will change the course of things.There’s no way it’s Jon Snow.





	younger and more beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo hi I'm still reposting old stuff from tumblr before it implodes and brings with the fic I haven't posted, this was written in the centuries for an anon who wanted _I don't remember where I saw it (except on tumblr) but I saw a crack post where Jon is the "younger and more beautiful queen" to cast Cersei down, and since you seem to take prompts, I was wondering if you could do something with that idea?_. WELL I HAD FUN WITH IT have at it. For once I didn't have to kill myself over the title AND I own nothing, what news. I'll now saunter back downwards and spam you some more with all the old stuff /o\

_No_ , Cersei thinks as the door crashes open and Ned Stark’s bastard comes in, his face covered in dirt and his armor covered in blood.

The last thing she had thought those northerners would do, was  _crowning another king_. And  _him_  out of everyone. Haven’t they learned what happens if you cross the crown -  _the Lannisters_?

Or, that was what she had thought before the damned boy managed to actually put his father’s banners together again - with  _Jaime’_ s help on top of that, from what she knows,  _she can’t believe that_  though, it most probably was some wrong information, there is no way Jaime is on  _their_  side - and marched south when he heard of King’s Landing burning.

Well, they deserved it. She’s  _not_  going to ever feel sorry about that - good riddance, all of them, they could have thought about it before crossing her. She’d shown them, hadn’t she -

And still.

Still.

The boy - he must be barely eight and then,  _gods_ , and hadn’t he died when he commanded the Wall, anyway? Of course, it hadn’t been by the hand of the people  _she_  sent there to do the job, not that she’s surprised, they all were useless in the first place - stares at her, looking somewhat… he should be angry. Instead, he only looks sad.

“ _Your Grace_ ,” he says, and she can  _hear_  that he doesn’t mean it. “I shall grant you a fair trial.”

_No_ , she screams as someone else comes up and grabs at her arms.

Her palms brush against the throne - she barely feels the skin tear.

–-

“Cersei,” Jaime says, and leans against the wall in front of the cell she has been confined into. The guard told her Snow said to pick the one where Ned Stark used to reside.

She doesn’t know what’s  _wrong_  with that bastard, but for being his father’s son, he has a coldness to him she hadn’t thought he’d have.

“Jaime,” she says, and seeing that he’s wearing a plain armor with a  _Stark_  cloak on his shoulder is almost making her eyes bleed. “I see you’re forgetting yourself all over again.”

“How so?”

“ _How so_? I’m your  _sister_. I’m -”

“If you were about to say  _the mother of your children_ , save it. I don’t see any of them living. And I don’t remember you ever letting me think of them as such, but that’s not the point. How so. Because it was the right thing to do? Because I swore to Ned Stark’s wife that I’d never harm her family and you about forced me to do so? Because I’m not  _you_? Because the reason I went down in history as a  _dishonorable_  kingslayer is that - I killed Aerys so that he wouldn’t burn King’s Landing and everyone living in it, and you finished what he started?” He shrugs. “And for that matter, I’m not doing anything less than what I swore to do back in the day when I went into the Kingsguard. Which, I hope you remember,  _you_  also encouraged me to do.”

“ _How_? They’re northerners. And you’re following a southern-born  _bastard_  of Ned Stark’s -”

“Haven’t you even heard? Half of the realm knows that’s not quite true.”

“ _What_?”

“At most, Lyanna Stark’s, not her brother’s. But Lord Reed says that in the Tower of Joy there was proof that Rhaegar Targaryen  _married_  her before going to fight his war. I imagine that if Targaryens could marry their own sisters, marrying two women wouldn’t be that different.”

“ _Jaime_  -”

“As it is, I’m following the rightful son of Rhaegar Targaryen’s, who by chance was the prince whose family I also was supposed to protect back in the day. That’s what I swore I’d do when I took the white. I’m not doing anything that makes me  _forget myself_ , Cersei.”

“You can’t -”

“I can and I will. You can be reassured that he  _will_  give you a fair trial, though. On  _that_ , he’s definitely Ned Stark’s son.”

And then he turns his back and leaves.

_No_. Just  _no_ , Cersei thinks. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. The prophecy said - a younger and more beautiful queen. That was Margaery. That  _had_  to be Margaery. Snow isn’t even married. Margaery is  _dead_. There is no way -

There is just no way -

_No_ , Cersei thinks. Certainly something has gone awry. Certainly something will happen that will change the course of things.

There’s no way it’s  _Jon Snow_.

–-

The day of the trial, she’s brought into the main hall of the Red Keep again. Snow is  _not_  sitting on the throne - on a chair on its side. He has bathed and dressed decently, not with that armor covered in rust, and as he stands up, Cersei can’t help thinking -  _before_ , when he was covered in dust, no one would have thought him beautiful. Given that he looks like Ned Stark, pretty much, no one else should have, but - but he’s wearing raven hair neatly combed and styled, he  _does_  have quite long lashes over his grey eyes, he’s lean under his Stark gray leather uniform, and he looks impossibly young as he takes a weary look at her.

And then she remembers.

_Queen you shall be… until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear._

She had assumed  _another_  meant another  _queen_.

But - but -

She doesn’t want to admit to herself that it might also mean  _someone else_  and not a  _queen_  specifically.

Because if it’s true - if it’s  _true_  -

Certainly he’s younger. And maybe he’s not  _handsome_  the way Jaime used to be before he lost his right hand and himself with it, or stunningly beautiful as Loras Tyrell used to be before he ended up covered in burns and dying of it, but no one has hacked at his hair and it’s not growing back brittle, the lines on his face make him look slightly older but certainly not uglier, and now that she stares at him and she  _knows_  she can see that maybe there’s  _something_ of Rhaegar in the way he holds himself and in the way he speaks softly and firmly.

He can’t be.

He can’t be, most of her says -

But a small part is surrendering as it says,  _he is_.

 

End.


End file.
